"I'm so sick of swimming, I could--"

"You work on a ship, Asher."

Talia was very tired of listening to Asher grip about swimming, and the feeling was mutual with the rest of the group. Since the swim back to the Death Lily was slightly longer than the trip to the Nosferatu, due to Adrian's weakened state and having to watch him to make sure he didn't sink under the water because of previously mentioned weakened state, everyone had much more time to listen to Asher moan and complain.

A few minutes after Talia reminded him that he was a member of a crew on the sea, he started up again, which brought about several not-so-positive reactions--

"Oh, would you shut up??"

"For the love of all that is holy!"

"Get over it already!!"

It was only then that he began to realize just how irritating he was becoming, and so he fell silent for the rest of the journey (muttering to himself instead, as he wouldn't be heard over the water lapping in everyone's ears).

Nearly an hour later, the six crawled on to the deck of the Death Lily, coughing, sputtering, and grumbling annoyedly. Talia was the first person up and she pulled her brother to his feet, as well. As the quartet struggled to do the same, she led him down stairs to dry off and find a room (they only had a few empty ones).

"How did it go?" One of the invisibles asked Ryan, who then stood and shook his head, spraying water droplets onto the surrounding area.

"All I can tell you is that the Nosferatu is full of dead--and living--people and we got Adrian. And we're cold," He replied, observing as Sarah, then Chess managed to stand, and Asher lay on his back, still muttering under his breath about the inconvenience of having to swim all the time (which was a lie, plain and simple--they didn't swim all the time).

It took Talia to get Asher up from the ground, and when everyone had verily regained their composure and were fairly dry, she returned to her spot at the helm and commanded that the crew hoist the anchor.

The stars glittered above as they headed to the nearest port town to purchase supplies and plunder and whatnot. No one could sleep because of the evening's activities, so everyone, jobless or otherwise, was roaming restlessly about the deck of the ship. The Black Pearl, on the other hand, was somewhat absent of a visible crew. Since they had had almost nothing to do with the rescue/revenge itself, many people had, evidently, gone to bed. Jack, however, was aboard the Death Lily, making light conversation with the not-so-preoccupied invisibles…and Sarah.

Miss Warren stood in her usual spot--the side of the ship--staring out mindlessly at the sea. When Jack addressed her, her response was quite sluggish, and she almost had to be dragged away from her view of the water to actually have a competent conversation with her. She was clearly tiredly distracted by the sight of the ocean.

"Sarah!"

"…Um…oh, uh, Pandora."

"…Tired?"

"…What?"

Jack grasped her by the shoulders and turned her around. "I said, 'tired?'" She stared at him blankly, then a more awake look appeared in her eyes.

"Oh! Yeah…you'd be, too, if you had gone with that madwoman. Be thankful--" She yawned widely. "--she made you stay here."

"Sure. Go to bed." He said, almost laughing. He didn't quite agree with her about having to stay--it had been so boring, he had nearly fallen asleep himself! With a sigh and an expression of lethargic defiance, she headed toward the stairs (though it would take a little while for her to ever 'head toward the stairs' the same way again).

"Oh, hey, uh…you were right; something important did happen today." He stopped her with his words, and she turned around.

"Yup. To coin a phrase, 'I'm always right.'" She smirked, then resumed walking. I'm going to have bloody nightmares about sneaking around ships with a crazy murderess. Wonderful. She thought, opening her door and stepping into her lonely cubicle. At least you're alive, Her more optimistic side piped up. What are you, Miss Caroler-of-the-Good-News? Her more cynical side chided. And lovely, now I'm talking to myself. I'm going to sleep… She crawled into her bed and almost fell asleep before she could finish climbing under the make-shift sheets.

Not too long after she left Jack (who went to talk to Chess after she disappeared down the stairwell), Talia approached her fellow captain and demanded that he return to his own ship and leave her crew in peace. He obliged, naturally, since Talia seemed more prone to violence than usual that night.

The next morning, as the sun rose, casting a beautiful golden haze across the sea, the two ships had already arrived at the port of another random port town and Talia had already gone to get supplies. Therefore, they were beginning to set sail again when Talia awakened Sarah.

As soon as the blonde rolled out of bed and hit the floor with a woody thunk, she slowly shuffled to her feet and stumbled up the stairs. Of course, no matter how tired she was, the sun woke her up completely with its piercing rays.

"Morning, sunshine," Asher muttered as she stepped into his field of vision. As she looked over at him, Sarah couldn't help but notice that he was dripping wet. He seemed to see that she noticed, so he held up one hand. "Please, don't ask. But remind me not to complain about swimming." As he wandered off to do some other menial task, Ryan, who had been standing behind Sarah the entire time, spoke;

"Talia woke him up with a bucket of water this morning," He explained, startling her. She turned.

"Serious?"

"Yeah."

"Wow. Not that I'm surprised," She looked at Talia, who was talking to Adrian and simultaneously reprimanding an invisible. What emotional stress that boy must go through with her…

"Eh, well, I'd better go work before she starts yelling at me. Have a lovely day." He turned away, leaving her alone.

She sighed and turned to the edge. She still had nothing to do and she really didn't want to ask Talia about it, seeing as she would probably go ballistic on her. Though she could have looked at the sky, she didn't. For once, she didn't particularly want to know what would happen.

As she stared at the water, looking for something to interest her enough for her brain to shut off (What else was there to do?), she heard Jack's familiar slur from a point somewhere behind her. She turned to see him speaking to Talia, Adrian now gone and talking with Ryan. She strained her ears to hear what they were saying, not daring to come any closer.

"Eh, Talia?" Jack asked cautiously.

"What?"

"Our deal?"

She loosely pushed back her scarlet hair, which shone vividly in the sunlight, then rested her hands on her hips. "Oh. Right." She glanced at Sarah, who jumped, their eyes meeting, then turned away (though she was still attempting to listen in). "…You were more a distraction than a help along the way…so I'm going to have to decline on the Pandora transfer." (Sarah smiled and almost laughed out loud with joy) Talia was reluctant to admit that Jack did help a bit (even if it was so clouded over that it looked like he hadn't helped at all), and that she didn't really want to give up Sarah.

"What??" He knew he had helped, even if it had only been so little that it would be a stretch to mention anything, but he had helped, nonetheless. He knew from personal experience that it was not wise to object to her, but he felt he needed to, as this was an injustice. "But--I gotta object with ye on this one, Miss Frost, I insist that I helped you!"

"Well, maybe ye did, but our agreement was that you assist me to my satisfaction, and your 'helping'--" She hooked her fingers dramatically. "--did not please me, Jack Sparrow." He opened his mouth to retort, but her reproving--and raging--look made him shut it unhappily.

He turned and began to walk away, probably to return to his own ship, but Talia continued. "I'm not finished wit you!" She called. He paused, then turned back around.

"Huh?"

"When I agreed to do this, I expected help, and all you've done is tag along, so if you'll help--notice I said help, not lollygag--help me ensnare and kill that conniving imbecile, Drew, you can have Pandora."

"WHAT!?"

Jack shrugged, cleverly disguising his joy at having a second chance, and grasped Talia's now-outstretched hand. "We have an accord."

"Indeed we do."

Fury, fury, fury. Sarah shook with anger. She had been so close to never seeing Jack again, so close to never having to worry about falling in love again, and then Talia, who was, by the way, the recent cause of most of her problems (and solutions, though she wasn't in the best mood to admit it--nor was she in the best mood to admit that she was happy about Jack having a second chance), just up and sold her off--again. Instead of storming off, though, she sat down on the deck and buried her face in her arms. Jack, I'll kill you before you help that woman. She swore (again, denying that she was mostly quite glad that Talia wanted to kill Drew, since she hated him as well…though probably to a somewhat lesser degree).

She wouldn't talk to anyone for the rest of the day, save for Asher, who could drown out her sorrows with his own ("swimming, swimming, etc."), and she didn't go to her quarters until after Jack left.

Sadly, she had to face him again the next morning, but she had cooled off by then and was being social once more.

When she first came on deck, the only people out were a handful of invisibles, Asher, Talia, and Adrian, who was wandering aimlessly. She took this time to take note of what she had learned about the captain's twin.

As you can imagine, he looked stunningly alike the his sister, aside from the fact that he had shorter hair, somewhat warmer eyes, and he was missing an eye. Yes, missing an eye--which, of course, meant that he had an eye-patch.

Since Adrian Frost looked so similar to Talia, it seemed as if he would be more intimidating--what with his identical scar on his cheek, eye-patch barely hidden by red hair, and such like points of interest--but he was almost the complete opposite of her. In other words, he was quiet, a little shy, and didn't kill someone the second they disagreed with him, unlike his sister.

She observed him for several minutes, watching as he made small talk with whoever he came upon first, then she turned to watch the water again. What boredom could ensue. Sometimes she was really glad that Talia never made her do anything (or rather, threatened her to get her to do something, but she never told her exactly what to do…so it was pretty much the same as having nothing to do).

"Hello." She looked up to see Adrian standing next to her, watching her with what appeared to be feigned interest, though it probably just looked that way. She smiled a bit.

"Mm? Oh, 'lo," She replied. He turned to the water, as she had been doing, and leaned on the edge. She did the same, though it was really just resuming what she had been doing already, for her.

"How long have you been working on the Death Lily?" He asked, tapping the wood with his short fingernails. Hmm. Tapping wood must run in the family. She thought, watching his fingers.

"Ohh…" She thought for a moment. She had never really stopped to consider how long she had been on the Death Lily. "I'm…not really sure. Good question." She smiled a little wider and shrugged. "So you're Talia's twin brother? What's it like, living with her??"

He sighed and laughed. "…Hah…oh, i-it's interesting. It's not as bad as you'd think, though." They both looked to Talia, who was standing in her usual spot, shouting orders. Sarah raised her eyebrows.

"Really?"

They both laughed this time and Sarah took notice of how pleasurable the conversation was. It was nice to have someone like Adrian to talk with for a change.

As the day wore on, Sarah was surprised to see that Talia had not once come over to scream at her for slacking off. She attributed this to the fact that Adrian seemed to be enjoying himself and she seemed to care for her brother a lot, so perhaps she didn't want to interrupt the amusement. It seemed logical enough for her.

Also throughout the morning, people joined the conversation for small snippets at a time, which made the dialogue much more diverse and entertaining. Altogether, it was the highlight of the…week. Yes, week.

However, the peace didn't last forever…no, peace simply couldn't last after six weeks with the same people. The day the tension broke had started out normally enough…

Ryan, being the entrepreneur he was, started a card tournament, since there was nothing else to do, and most of the crew was participating, Talia included.

It wasn't until Jack mistakenly beat Talia that the chaos started. Apparently, that didn't sit too well with the Captain. Chess, who had been playing Sarah, ironically, looked up to see Talia on her feet, glaring at Jack with just about every one of her knives drawn and pointed at him. "Uh oh…looks like we've been cooped up too long. Too bad we're sitting at the table right next to 'em…" He whispered. Sarah looked up, too.

"Ah--T-Talia…y-y-you know, I didn't--it was, uh…" Jack stuttered, trying to convince Talia not to gut him. He clearly hadn't been thinking (you just don't beat Talia).

"It wasn't his fault!" One of the invisibles shouted in a single act of unbelievable courage. Talia's eyes darted around to find the one who had called out.

"Yeah, ye always do dis!" Another hollered. Talia happened to catch the one talking and switched several knives to face him instead. Goodness knows, she had many to spare.

"I won't take questioning, nor second-guessing, not from the likes of you!" She responded, her voice reaching a fevered pitch. "If any one o' ye want to take this further, let 'em speak!" A resounding silence, then Talia, who's blades were still out and ready to impale, sat down. She glared hatefully at Jack and, with a sort of forced calm in her voice, said, "Alrighty, Jack, let's…have…a rematch."

"Okay…" He replied, afraid to decline.

Soon, the crew began to realize firsthand just how lethal being 'cooped up for too long' could be. Everything went downhill from there. Several invisibles sitting near each other got in a nasty argument that eventually evolved into a fistfight, an invisible cheated against Ryan, who proceeded to deliver the beat down upon him, Asher finally succeeded in driving half the room crazy (Chess included) and most everyone began to form gangs and beat each other up, and finally, Talia, Jack, and Sarah snapped, screeching mindlessly at each other and bickering to kingdom come.

It must have been a miracle that Justin (the 'land ho' man who had decided not to join in the festivities of the card tournament) and two other invisibles had been on deck, spotted the next island, and had sailed to it, all the while the slugfest downstairs raged on. As it slowly began to overflow on deck, and people started to actually notice that there was a town directly next to them, the fighting reached a high point; people fought each other to get off the ship.

Jack, Talia, and Sarah, who had been in their own little territorial war, struggled past the crowd and off the ship (amazingly). As the crew emptied out into the town like fish escaping a fisherman's net, the three of them stood in a small circle, glaring at each other.

Finally, Talia spoke, and said, "Fine. Alright. We'll take the sections. I'll take the east section, Sarah, you take the west, and Jack, you've got the north. Now--let's make this understandable. I-don't-want-to-see-any-of-you-for-a-week, is that clear?"

"Great. Fine by me."

"Crystal clear. Happy to oblige."

They all split and went their separate ways, content to be alone for a whole seven days--and so the week of partition began.